The Key to Things
by Atheniandream
Summary: “You’re kidding me right? Weren’t you listening at all out there?” Contains Spoiler Spec for Season Four Companions. Donna and the Doctor RoseTen


As always I like to bring you in half way through the situation!

SPOILER WARNING Spoilers for **SEASON FOUR**. Any that you may have heard, right up to the end episodes is important.

Summary: "You're kidding me right? Weren't you listening at all out there?"

Characters: Ten, Donna Noble (Rose/Ten)

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**The Key to Things**

'In all the worlds, she had to walk back into mine…'

The Doctor deflated, letting his back rest against the doorframe, the cold hardness against his head as it met with the hardwood, hands sliding down the angles in his tired face to hang heavy at his sides.

Much to his distaste…Donna was right. _…Bollocks…_

Over the past few months, travelling with her had been a revelation and at the same time, some sort of scary new found revolution; with her forthrightness and blunt approach to conversation he had always known that it wasn't going to be an easy ride, and yet he'd been attracted to the notion of travelling with her, knowing that their banter would keep the fight strong and that underneath it all she had the gall to put up with his world.

And then there were the times when she presented him with the worst…

Hands rubbed over furrowed brow.

In his nine hundred years, he'd battled Daleks, fought for his Country, lost his country, run away like a frightened child in the storm, and then joined the fight once again to battle more evils in the Universes.

And yet such simple collisions with the emotional core in his head had always – if his mind recollected him – found their way to cause poignancy in his life that would haunt him for as long as it would let him.

The door opened quickly and he stumbled momentarily, tottering slowly around the room to regain balance.

"Do you mind?" He snapped at Donna as she appeared into the room.

Her lips twitched into a small smile as she folded her arms, glaring at him expectedly. "Well?"

His face morphed into a mock coolness, as his eyes sunk into the nearest chair trying with all his might to stop a frown forming in a very 'school boy' fashion. "Well what?"

"You're kidding me right? Weren't you listening at all out there?"

"Yes…" A pang of patronisation swung towards him, challenging every one of his nine hundred and three years.

"And?"

"And what?"

"Are you having a laugh? You're a right one you are! You're nine hundred years old, you've battled monsters, and aliens and-"

"-It's nine hundred and three, actually."

"And haemo-whatevers; you've travelled the galaxies and pissed off just about every Dalek you've ever met, and yet you sit there like some little chav in detention after what I've just told you! You should be jumping for joy you twit."

Clearly the tactic of goading him wasn't working as well as normal. A 'shut off' Doctor in her past experience was not a playful nor proactive Doctor. But she spoke the truth, for a Lord of Time, who – annoying as it was to admit – had shown her some of the most beautiful, and with that some of the most frightening places and people in the universe, and above it all when it came to a matter of the heart he became a complete male tosspot.

The tone in his voice darkened slightly as the frown broke through with a conviction. "You don't understand, Donna. So, just drop it."

"Drop it! I'll tell you something… two years ago, I saw you a broken man. You didn't show it a lot mind, but every time I tried to ask about her you clammed up. Now I can understand if she left you, or hurt you. But she was lost to you and now…" Exasperation took a pause. "The person you lost is standing outside, and you're sat in here like some scared little rabbit…"

Letting all the tension drain from his body, he sunk lower into the seat.

"I can't lose her again."

"I know that," Her tone comforted his own.

"If we meet again, I would want her to stay."

"Well that's obvious…"

"But she was never meant to stay forever. And I couldn't risk losing her again."

"Wait a minute. How do you know she would stay? How do you know that she hasn't found something better, Mr Fantastic?"

He groaned at her. Another good point..._Bollocks…_ Amidst the thousands of questions that encompassed his mind, the most important had to be attached to the notion that she wouldn't want to stay, wouldn't want to run away with him and continue their adventures as if they'd never been apart; as if it had all been some childhood nightmare. So many lost and so very little gained, in the end, maybe he was hitting a point of needing something solid. Something comforting and familiar to come back to when the world crumbled around him; a hand to hold that he new would never leave his side. For such a fleeting moment she had been that person, that one to pluck him, war-torn and bruised of heart and prop him and dust him off without him even noticing. A taking of the hand and a smile and suddenly his world was turned upside down. Not by a meteor shower or apocalypse or genocide, but by a young human with a huge heart and a fresh innocence on the world, that secretly latched onto him and never let him go until it was out of her control. She'd endured past loves and the shoddy peppered background of a man exiled and cut off from his own world, challenged and accepted his nature even when he changed his face.

'…_You can spend the rest of your life with me, I can't spend the rest of mine with you…'_

Both jumped slightly as they heard a key turn in the door of the Tardis.

It had to totally escaped him that Rose Tyler would still have her key.

He turned to Donna, "Well, I think we're about find out, aren't we?"

Rose Tyler, he suspected, had her key to many things of his…

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Feedback would be great. Although I sometimes fall behind with feedings so I can't preach – Merry Christmas!


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